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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29449416">Friends Don't Frame Friends: A Lesson for a Clueless Cannibal</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyFelixTristis/pseuds/LadyFelixTristis'>LadyFelixTristis</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hannibal (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crack Treated Seriously, Framing People is a Dick Move, Gen, Hannibal (TV) Season/Series 01, Hannibal Lecter Has a Crush, Hannibal Lecter is a Dick, M/M, Pre-Slash, Will Graham Doesn't Care, Will Graham Helps Himself, Will Graham is So Done, Will Trash Talks Abigail to Save Himself</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 18:35:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,041</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29449416</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyFelixTristis/pseuds/LadyFelixTristis</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Ear? What ear?</p><p>Will Graham doesn’t try to thwart Hannibal Lecter’s plans for him.</p><p>He just does. By accident. </p><p>And then on purpose.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Will Graham &amp; Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>435</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Friends Don't Frame Friends: A Lesson for a Clueless Cannibal</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Will Graham stumbled dazedly into his bathroom. He felt like he’d been crawling through a desert. His throat was filled with sand and he was dying of thirst. </p><p>He just about missed the sink in his half-aware state, but managed with effort to locate and open the tap. Cupping his hands beneath the faucet, he drank from the water that pooled there. The cold, life-giving liquid felt exquisite on his face and in his mouth. </p><p>He flexed his jaw, grimaced at the strange ache (had he been grinding his teeth in his sleep?), and yawned involuntarily. The smacking sound of thickened saliva confirmed his state of dehydration. His questing tongue exposed another problem: his teeth felt fuzzy. He would definitely need to brush his--</p><p>The nausea hit.</p><p>Gagging, Will fell to his knees next to the toilet, his aching head hanging over the bowl that he had, thank dog, cleaned recently. What had he eaten last? Something bad, clearly, but he couldn’t quite remember what. He choked, eyes scrunched closed and tears streaming, until whatever was in his stomach had moved out with a <i>splash</i>. He held his breath and reached up to flush without opening his watering eyes. He had always hated both the sight and odor of vomit. The last thing he wanted at the moment was to be sick again. </p><p>Sighing with some relief as the toilet finished flushing and the bowl refilled, he was glad to note that his nausea was a little better. Unfortunately, he still felt like he’d been dragged by a truck down the highway, and his thirst hadn’t abated. He braced his forearms on the toilet seat, stubbornly dragging himself upright. His sight was still blurred with sleep and tears, but the sound of the still-running faucet led him back to the sink. He shakily rinsed his hands, then returned to drinking from them.</p><p>When he finally managed to focus his vision, he realized that his hands and nails were filthy. What had he been doing? Working on an engine? Digging a hole with his bare hands? Had he taken up sleep-gardening? His memory problems were completely out of control. This <i>had</i> to stop.</p><p>Determined to fix one problem at least, he scrubbed his hands with Quick Lemon cleaner, the miracle substance he used to remove engine grease. It was the best stuff. Got absolutely anything off of your skin, clothes, you name it. He made sure to scrub very well, thoroughly removing the debris from under his nails. It was a huge pet peeve of his, having stuff under his nails. <i>Note to self,</i> he thought, <i>Don’t work on dirty jobs while you’re in a blackout. Blackouts make you a slob.</i></p><p>Finally satisfied with the state of his hands, he pulled back from the sink and took a deep breath. His breath tasted horrible. No surprise there. He grabbed his tooth brush and paste from the cabinet and went about brushing his teeth and tongue until his gums nearly ached. He followed up with a good floss, and finished the routine with a mouthful of water to swish and spit.</p><p>The linoleum floor was making him uncomfortably cold, he realized. Thinking he should get some socks or even his boots, he looked down at his bare feet only to find himself horrified. They were even more filthy than his hands had been!</p><p>Will Graham was a bachelor who worked on greasy engines in his living room, spent his free time wrist-deep in fish guts, and had seven dogs, but he was not a dirty person goddamn it. He cleaned the dog paws before they came inside the house. How on earth had he missed cleaning his own paws?</p><p>Groaning, he stripped off his clothes and reached into the shower, pulling the knob and turning it to “hot.” He felt pretty grimy anyway, so a shower was for the best. He brought the Quick Lemon cleaner with him for his feet. They truly were filthy, and it would take an age to get everything off of his skin with his normal soap.</p><p>Will felt much more like himself after he scrubbed all of the muck off of his feet and legs. There was nothing quite like a hot shower to make you feel like a new person. It even seemed to help his head, a little. A very little. </p><p>He patted his hair with his towel as he stepped out. Rubbing it always made a huge frizzy mess, so he had to be careful. His eyes fell on the pile of clothes he would need to throw into the washer. It looked like he had gotten some muck on those as well. That wasn’t a problem. Quick Lemon worked great to remove stains, too, and the enzyme laundry detergent he used in the wash would take care of whatever was left. That stuff was essential when you had a lot of dogs.</p><p>Carefully navigating around the filth he had tracked in, he deposited the garments and detergent in the washer. He took a moment to think before deciding that while he was at it, he might as well throw the bedding in there too. He had to wash his sheets just about every day thanks to his unfortunate sleep-sweating habit. </p><p>He was dismayed to realize there was grime on the bedding, too, until he realized that was where he had been before stumbling into the bathroom. He should have expected it.</p><p>Sighing, he fetched the Quick Lemon from the bathroom and rubbed it onto the spots before finally carrying the sheets and blanket to the washer and pushing them inside. He added some more detergent and made sure the machine’s equivalent to a “filthy” setting was selected. </p><p>Next, he needed to clean the trail of nastiness off of the floors. Ugh. What a morning.</p><p>—</p><p>Will’s laundry had finished. His garments were in the dresser and his bed was re-made. The floor was clean. He had even cleaned the porch. Just what had he been doing? Sleepwalking through swamp mud?</p><p>The dogs were out front since he’d needed to move their beds to properly clean the floor. Seeing them through the window, joyfully jumping and running, made him smile despite having his mouth full of granola bar. A poor breakfast, but the thought of cooked food made him feel like he would be sick again.</p><p>In a cleaning mood and willing to take advantage of not having his pack underfoot for the moment, he moved on to straightening the bookshelves, dusting the piano, watering his few plants, and reorganizing his fishing flies. It was odd, though. He didn’t recognize some of the flies. One of them, he mostly recognized, but he definitely hadn’t finished it.</p><p>Had he made them while in a blackout?</p><p>He <i>really</i> didn’t like the look and feel of them, so maybe the periods of lost time were more sinister than he’d feared. Maybe he was being possessed. The thought made him shiver. The vibe of the flies was totally off, and he didn’t want them to taint his other flies, not to mention his house. He certainly would never want to eat anything caught with them.</p><p>The fact that he was superstitious was something he kept carefully hidden from his colleagues. He’d gotten enough shit for it in college. But he didn’t care what they said. The simple practices his old piano instructor, Mrs. Harmon, had taught him as a kid had improved his life from the beginning. They had never brought him harm. </p><p>He decided to build a small fire out back, burning the bad flies in a metal bowl. He would have preferred his stone bowl, but didn’t want to contaminate it with these things. He burned the lures until everything had turned to fine ash except the hooks and…bits of bone? Were those teeth?! What the hell kind of cursed objects were these? Had someone else been in his house?</p><p>He had originally planned to scatter the ashes a few trees into the forest behind his house, but that wasn’t going to work with the bits of bone. He carried the bowl to a ledge overlooking the river and overturned the bowl. The ashes blew away with the wind. The bones and hooks fell into the river where they would be indistinguishable from the other bones and lost hooks littering the riverbed. </p><p>He was starting to become concerned. Those lures…those were bad news, and felt intentional. The bits of teeth had looked human. He knew he hadn’t killed anybody, not even during his blackouts. So what, exactly, was happening?</p><p>Once he had returned inside, he decided to do a proper search of his home and barn to see if anything else seemed wrong or out of place.</p><p>A few bottles of perfume, some unfamiliar flashlights with suspicious stains, a pair of sneakers that did not belong to him but were in his size, strange tools, and a couple of knives later…he was furious.</p><p>Someone was trying to frame him.</p><p>They would have succeeded if he wasn’t superstitious and a little bit paranoid.</p><p>He wished he wasn’t feeling like death. He did not want to deal with this shit. Had he found everything? He tried to breathe and think.</p><p>It was still early. He could do this.</p><p>The dogs, he herded back into the house with new food and water.</p><p>He took the bag of evidence to his car and drove. He stopped on a back road where he sprayed everything down with a mist of bleach, then let it dry for a few minutes. Everything got tossed into a new bag. He drove the rest of the way into town and deposited the bag in a charity donation bin. It was a common tactic used by criminals for a reason: it usually worked.</p><p>Once he had finally returned to his home, he did another lap around the property and found a piece of antler and a bloody rope in an overlooked corner of the barn. He was going to kill whoever had done this.</p><p>He burned the rope, natural fibers thankfully, in the metal bowl and took it and the piece of antler to the river. He again scattered the ashes and let the antler fall into the rushing water. Those woods were full of deer. Antlers were nothing strange.</p><p>After another search, having found nothing new, he took a bundle of sage from his herb box and carefully lit it, then blew until the leaves were smoldering. He walked from room to room, dejectedly watching the swirling, aromatic smoke as it cleansed his beloved house, wishing the world would leave him alone.</p><p>The smudging was done by the time he received a visitor.</p><p>There was a knock on the door. Will had kind of been expecting it. He stepped out onto the porch and closed the door behind him, unwilling to let the heat escape into the cold outdoors.</p><p>“Will.” </p><p><i>Looks like someone else is in a bad mood,</i> Will thought. “Jack.” He pulled on his beanie and gloves against the cold.</p><p>“Abigail Hobbs is missing.”</p><p>“That’s too bad.” He would not mention missing time, and he would not hesitate to throw that manipulative little shit under the bus.</p><p>“You’re the last one known to have seen her. You checked her out of the facility.”</p><p>“Yeah, well, that didn’t go so well.” Probably an understatement.</p><p>“Is that so?”</p><p>“I took her to Minnesota, to her dad’s cabin. Thought I could work out the copycat if we returned there, where the second victim was found. Thought it might jog Abigail’s memory if she was there without so much stress and trauma.”</p><p>“And?”</p><p>“I didn’t figure out the copycat.”</p><p>“And Abigail?”</p><p>“No idea where she is.” Absolutely, 100% true.</p><p>“You mind if I have the team search your house?” He held his phone aloft, as if to indicate that they were but a phone call away.</p><p>Will scoffed. “You should know the answer to that, Jack. I’ll never let law enforcement search my house without a warrant.”</p><p>“You got something to hide?” Jack’s eyes narrowed.</p><p>“Nothing at all that I’m aware of. But having my shoes confiscated as ‘evidence’ because I stepped on some blood spatter working for you at a crime scene sounds like a whole bunch of not-fun. There might also be trace amounts of fish blood on my fillet knife that could be mistaken for something sinister, and I use that every day. My stuff stays where it is.”</p><p>“We’ll see about that.” </p><p><i>Stubborn bastard.</i> Will politely turned his head away from Jack to roll his eyes. “You were right, you know.”</p><p>“Regarding?”</p><p>“Abigail Hobbs. She did kill Nick Boyle, and she lured the girls for her father. That’s why she ran from me when we were at the cabin. I realized what she’d done and raised my voice. She ran. I came home.”</p><p>“You said she hadn’t done those things.”</p><p>“I was wrong. She fooled me. I didn’t want to see it.”</p><p>“What else were you wrong about?”</p><p>“I’ll get back to you on that.”</p><p>“You’d better. You left her there?”</p><p>Will shrugged. “You know she isn’t actually serving a sentence, right? And that she’s a nineteen year old adult? She can sign herself out of the facility at any time, even if it is against medical advice. She’s her own responsibility. And she isn’t who I thought she was. She’s something far uglier, wearing an innocent facade. I was finished with her and the situation. She ran, I left. That’s what I know.”</p><p>“If she can sign herself out of the facility, why did she keep jumping the wall?”</p><p>“Something to hide, maybe?” Will let his rolling eyes be seen, this time.</p><p>“Damn.”</p><p>“Look, Jack, you can come inside to make sure Abigail isn’t hiding anywhere. I just don’t want people scrutinizing every square inch of my life and confiscating everything they’re not sure about. I don’t actually have that much stuff, and what I do have, I use. I’m not feeling well today. I’m not up for a shopping spree to replace a bunch of things.”</p><p>Jack sighed.</p><p>“Come on, I’ll make some coffee. You can poke your head around. See if anything seems weird or teenage girl-shaped.”</p><p>Jack quietly followed Will into the house, gazing around with obvious reserve. “Go ahead,” Will encouraged. “Look around. Careful upstairs though if you have allergies, it doesn’t get cleaned as often as the downstairs because I don’t hang out up there much.”</p><p>Will proceeded to make coffee in a boring old drip coffee pot. Nothing at all like Doctor Lecter’s strange alchemical instrument of a coffee creator. He listened as Jack walked around on the wooden floor boards, venturing throughout the ground floor and then upstairs. </p><p>After several minutes, he returned, in time for the coffee to finish dripping. Will poured him a cup and pushed it across the little table to him.</p><p>“Find anything interesting?” Will inquired.</p><p>“Nothing jumped out at me,” Jack admitted. “Cleaner than I expected. You cleaning up after something?”</p><p>“Just mud and engine oil, as usual. I tend to be pretty boring,” Will pointed out. “Aside from my job, and I try not to bring that home.”</p><p>“I noticed that,” Jack said. “No files. My office at home is covered in files.”</p><p>Will shrugged. “Everything I need to use for presentations for my classes is on my laptop. Buster likes to chew paper. I’d rather not return files with holes and little bits missing.”</p><p>“Thoughtful of you,” Jack said with a small smirk. </p><p>“What now?” Will wondered. “You put an APB out yet for Abigail?”</p><p>“Yes. And I’m sending some locals out to check the cabin and the house. She might be squatting there for lack of other options.”</p><p>Will nodded in agreement. “Makes sense. I think—”</p><p>“Will?”</p><p>Will stared into the middle distance, eyes unfocused. A moment later, he started to seize, falling to his knees and then forward. Jack managed to catch him and lower him to the floor gently, taking the half-full coffee cup from his hand before it spilled. </p><p>“Damn it, Graham,” Jack muttered as he dialed 9-1-1. “Since when do you have seizures?”</p><p>—</p><p>Will awoke in a hospital. Hard to say which one. Hospitals are usually pretty similar. </p><p>His head was slightly less painful than it had been for several weeks. He felt grimy again, as if he hadn’t just taken a shower. Had he? How had he gotten here? More missing time?</p><p>He pressed the nurse call button, hoping that someone could give him an idea of what was happening.</p><p>A nurse entered a few minutes later. “Good to see you’re awake, Mr. Graham,” he said. </p><p>“Thanks,” Will croaked out with a very dry throat, nothing better coming to mind. “Um, why am I here?”</p><p>“You were brought in for seizure activity. I’ll ask the doctor to come talk to you about everything.”</p><p>“Thanks,” Will rasped. The nurse took pity on him and fetched him a cup of ice to eat while he waited for the doctor.</p><p>The doctor was a black haired woman, short in stature, who radiated kindness. Will immediately relaxed in her presence. </p><p>“Mr. Graham, it’s nice to meet you,” she said with a brief nod. “I’m your neurologist, Dr. Butler.”</p><p>“Right, uh, nice to meet you. Do you know what’s wrong with me?”</p><p>“I have a strong suspicion, yes. You’ve been unconscious for a few days, but we ran an MRI on you after you were admitted for a seizure, and found that the right hemisphere of your brain is severely inflamed. You tested negative for bacterial and viral causes of encephalitis, so we’re looking at uncommon forms now. Rest assured, Mr. Graham, we will find the cause and give you the best treatment we have available.”</p><p>“No promise that I’ll get better, huh?”</p><p>“I hope you will. Your case is more advanced than I would prefer, but our talk right now makes me very optimistic. You’re completely lucid and able to understand and speak clearly. These are excellent signs.”</p><p>“Well, that’s good, I guess.”</p><p>“It’s very good. Now, what have you been experiencing lately? Was that your first seizure?”</p><p>“I have no idea,” he admitted. “I can’t remember it, or any others. I am missing periods of time from my memory, though.”</p><p>She nodded sympathetically. “That can certainly happen. It’s very common to have no memory of a seizure. No one else has mentioned witnessing one?”</p><p>“No. I live alone, and none of my students or colleagues mentioned anything.”</p><p>“Okay. Anything else unusual? Headache?”</p><p>“Oh yeah, constantly. And I started sleepwalking a while back. My psychiatrist said the sleepwalking and missing time were probably caused by stress, but maybe it’s the inflammation? Actually, huh…”</p><p>“You’ve remembered something?”</p><p>“Yeah, uh, I got an MRI just recently at another hospital. But the Doctor said the scan was normal.”</p><p>“Hmm, if it was recent, the inflammation definitely should have been visible. Which hospital was it? And what was the Doctor’s name? I’ll have the films transferred over.”</p><p>—</p><p>“Hello again Mr. Graham, how are you feeling?”</p><p>“A little better, thank you. What’s the news today?”</p><p>“Well, I got your scans transferred over from Noble Hills, and it’s odd. You said that the Doctor found no abnormalities?”</p><p>“Right. He said he could do some blood tests and things but nothing was wrong with my brain as far as he could see. He showed me a picture. Said it was normal.”</p><p>“I’m not sure how it happened, whether he was reading the wrong films, or something else went wrong. But the inflammation is plainly visible on those scans, Mr. Graham. Even a doctor with no specialization would be able to see that something was wrong.”</p><p>Will’s stomach sank, thinking about Dr. Lecter watching the scans as they came in. Had he missed the inflammation, too? What, exactly, was happening here?</p><p>—</p><p>“Will.”</p><p>“Jack. Are my dogs okay?”</p><p>“They’re fine. They’re staying with Alana while you’re here. You’re looking better than the last time I saw you.” The man sat down in the visitor chair, hat clutched in one hand.</p><p>He felt his mouth twist into a pained smile. “I’m not having a seizure.”</p><p>“We searched your house, car, property. Got a warrant. Sorry about that,” Jack said with a frown, as if confessing to a crime. “Didn’t find anything at your place, but we found a bad scene at the old Hobbs place. You were the last known person seen with her and we had to be sure.”</p><p>Will raised his eyebrow at someone he had considered almost-a-friend, or at least on friendly terms. He’d comforted the guy after he realized his wife was dying, for dogsake. And now, who knew what state his house was in. “Had to be sure, huh? Thanks for the vote of confidence. It’s touching. How’s my house? Is my stuff back yet?”</p><p>Jack sighed. “It’s on its way back. You were right about the fillet knife with fish blood and spatter on the bottom of your shoe, from the Buddish case. We also combed through your fishing flies, at Doctor Lecter’s suggestion actually. Suggested you might keep trophies ‘in the form of possessions dear to you.’ Nothing there either. It looked really bad for a minute there, Will. Doctor Lecter played part of a taped session. You were talking like you had killed someone.”</p><p><i>Doctor Lecter, huh?</i> he thought. <i>Another strike against the good Doctor.</i> “Jack,” he said. “You know that’s how I empathize with the people we catch, right? I don’t see what’s happening like it’s a movie. I get into their heads, think like them. Doctor Lecter is supposed to help me come back to myself. The fact that he betrayed my trust like that makes me furious. I don’t give a damn whether or not I’m officially his patient. That was unethical.”</p><p>Jack sat silently, jaw clenched. After all, that kind of heads up from the Doctor was likely exactly what he’d had in mind when making the arrangements.</p><p>Will returned to the other interesting thing Jack had said. “You found a bad scene at the Hobbs house?”</p><p>“Blood. A lot of it. It’s a match for her.” If Jack could have breathed steam like a dragon, Will thought he might have then.</p><p>“Foul play, or self-inflicted?” <i>What did you do, Abigail?</i> he wondered. <i>Yeah, yeah, I don’t remember coming home, but I know I didn’t kill you.</i></p><p>“Likely the former.” Jack had a tense frown and scrunched brows, troubled and grim.</p><p>“The copycat?” <i>Who are you? Where are you? I feel like you’re just out of reach.</i></p><p>“Very likely.”</p><p>—</p><p>“Hello, Will.”</p><p>“Hello, Doctor Lecter.” Will had a strange expression on his face, Hannibal thought. Head canted to the side, as if curious. Eyes narrowed, as if distrustful. Hannibal believed his biggest flaw might be his deficiencies in empathizing with others. He had worked very hard to learn how to determine emotions based on specific body language cues, but the practice was imperfect. Did Will know what Hannibal had done? Did he suspect?</p><p>“How are you feeling, Will?” Hannibal asked. <i>How did you manage to undo the evidence I left on and about your person and property?</i> he <i>wanted</i> to ask.</p><p>“A little better,” Will assured. “Haven’t had any more seizures. FBI searched my house and didn’t find anything.” <i>Was that defiance in his posture?</i> Hannibal wondered.</p><p>“Of course they didn’t,” Hannibal said. “That would be ridiculous.”</p><p>“It certainly would be, yes.” Was a single raised eyebrow flirtation? If only he had his guidebook.</p><p>“And your recovery is coming along?”</p><p>“Yes. Luckily, it looks like I’ll escape permanent brain damage despite how advanced my case is. It would have been better if Doctor Sutcliffe hadn’t mixed up my scans with someone else’s when we were there. I could have had treatment a lot sooner.” Was that a…snarl? A grimace? Will was so much more complicated and important than his normal patients. The facial and body language cues he had studied most thoroughly were related to suspicion and sadness, and these were not those, thankfully.</p><p>“I’m very sorry to hear that, Will. I of course take responsibility as he was my recommendation.” His plan had gone without a hitch until Will had inexplicably disposed of the evidence tying him to several murders. Will had to have known what he was doing to clean up so thoroughly. There was no reason for him to suspect Hannibal as the source, but he wanted desperately to know what was happening in that genius mind of his.</p><p>“That’s okay,” Will assured. “Somebody punished him pretty thoroughly already, though I can’t imagine it could have been in regards to me. After all, nobody knew the scans had been switched until my new neurologist discovered it yesterday.”</p><p>“Indeed,” Hannibal replied with some wariness. “I am very worried about dear Abigail. Uncle Jack offered few details, but our Miss Lounds managed to enter and take photos, as she does. There appeared to be quite a lot of blood.” He adjusted his mask to reflect <i>concern.</i></p><p>“Yeah, that’s too bad,” Will said with less care than Hannibal had expected. “You know, I think the encephalitis treatment banished Hobbs from my mind once and for all. Even before that, once I found out she had been helping her dad, I was kind of done with her, you know? I mean, how hard is it to call a tip line or tell one of her friends to do it? Like that Marissa.” Will shook his head, huffing out a breath.</p><p>“Do you resent Abigail for her involvement in her father’s crimes?” <i>What does this mean for me?</i> Hannibal wondered, feeling slight concern.</p><p>“Resent? No, I wouldn’t say that. The entire situation is tragic. I certainly don’t wish her any harm. I do hope we’re able to catch the copycat as soon as possible and bring him to justice. I have a feeling that he was the culprit behind Abigail’s disappearance.”</p><p>“A very real possibility,” Hannibal agreed. <i>Remarkable boy,</i> Hannibal thought. <i>It’s as if you don’t even know that you were being framed as the copycat. Your acting is superb.</i></p><p>
  <i>Who are you, Will Graham? What darkness have you been hiding from me all this time? Are you already like me?</i>
</p><p>—</p><p>“Hello again Doctor Lecter,” Will greeted cheerily. He had an experiment to run.</p><p>He had been <i>so bored,</i> as there are only so many things to do while hospitalized, and no one had thought to bring him a tablet, laptop, or case files. For entertainment, he had his mind or the television.</p><p>Sometimes (many times) he needed <i>out</i> of his mind. So, television it was. Not having a television at home meant that most programs were brand new to him. The procedural crime dramas were quite entertaining, if he was honest with himself.</p><p>More important, he knew that Doctor Lecter didn’t watch TV shows. Didn’t even see movies. Wouldn’t know the first thing about the plot-line of a random procedural crime drama. Which meant Will could make up whatever he wanted to about it. </p><p>“Ah, partaking of the television, I see,” Doctor Lecter observed. His usual inscrutable expression made Will feel a little self-conscious despite himself.</p><p>“Uh, yeah, it’s actually kind of interesting. They’re playing this show on marathon and I’ve started to enjoy it. The criminal antagonist is kind of obsessed with the clueless detective, and decides the best way to get the attention of the protagonist is to frame him for murder. Who does that? That’s some extreme ponytail-pulling there.”</p><p>“I take it you…do not approve of such a method,” Doctor Lecter replied. He seemed to be choosing his words very carefully.</p><p>“Of course not. I could never forgive someone who framed me for murder, much less allow them to become closer to me.”</p><p>“Yes. That would be unthinkable,” Doctor Lecter said, nodding very slowly. “What of being framed for other crimes? Could you forgive them then?”</p><p>“What, like shoplifting? Probably not. I’m serious, who frames someone for anything to get their attention? Just, I don’t know, send them some flowers or something. Take them to dinner. Invite them out for coffee. Find some similar interests and talk to them about those.”</p><p>“Perhaps the antagonist is testing the protagonist,” Doctor Lecter suggested. “Perhaps he believes that he recognizes in his detective friend the kind of darkness that dwells within himself. If this protagonist came to believe that he had committed murder, he might come to a deeper understanding of both himself and of the antagonist, perhaps becoming more open to the idea of intimacy between them.”</p><p>Will stared at Doctor Lecter. Was the look on the other man’s face <i>hopeful?</i> “First, being in prison is the greatest fear of so many people because it’s horrible. Showing someone the actual consequences of committing crimes by locking them away is a fantastic deterrent from ever wanting to join the antagonist in a life of crime. Second, have you heard of the saying ‘You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar’? This antagonist would be better off treating the protagonist so well that his loyalty for the antagonist would be stronger than his duty to the law.”</p><p>“I…see,” Doctor Lecter said, looking somewhat distracted. It was unlike him. “I believe I understand your point, Will. Thank you for your explanation.”</p><p>“You’re welcome,” Will said graciously. If he was not mistaken, his hunch had been correct and his experiment a success. <i>Who needs this kind of thing explained to them?</i> Will wondered. </p><p>He thought he might know.</p><p>—</p><p>A lovely bouquet arrived for Will the next day.</p><p>It was signed “Yours, Hannibal.”</p><p><i>Yep,</i> Will thought. <i>Took the bait.</i></p><p>It wouldn’t be that easy. Doctor Lecter would have to do <i>much</i> better than that. Will was serious when he said that he could never forgive someone for framing him. Although it seemed not to have worked out according to the other man’s plans, it was likely that Doctor Lecter had indeed been the one to attempt to frame him.</p><p>Which meant Doctor Lecter was a murderer. </p><p>He might need to do something about that.</p><p>For the moment, though, he enjoyed the hyacinths and daisies.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I miiiight continue this, eventually, but for now it's a oneshot! :D</p><p>This was inspired by a prompt in the ACOC server. &lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
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